Guest Blog Courtesy of The Franklin Institute

There’s more to sunlight than meets the eye! Our Sun makes life on Earth possible, but it’s also one of our best sources of sustainable energy. Today, researchers are studying the properties of sunlight and experimenting with new materials that could help us turn this boundless energy into fuel we can use.

Start your own investigation to learn more about solar energy in this activity from The Franklin Institute, a science museum in Philadelphia, and Penn State University’s Center for Nanoscale Science. Build a Sunlight Oven to investigate how the atoms and molecules in a material can turn light into heat—and how color can make a difference.